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I raised this question on python-dev. There was only a
couple of replies.

To summarize: the original "next N" suggestion got -1 
(b/c in gdb "next N" means repeat "next" N times and it is
desirable to keep pdb's and gdb's command sets as close as
possible), however the alternative suggestion to implement
"until" (which is also supported by gdb)  got +1.

Python-dev reference:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-August/055298.html

Patch  #1267629  implements 'until' and should address the
original problem.